"[Fashion Week] just got me on the first week in a long time that I hadn't been working. If I have time off and I want to go out, it doesn't take much," he explained. "It could be Model Train Week and I would have been out there every night, and people would have been like 'Aziz Ansari is the face of model trains.'" Asked what designers he trends toward, Mr. Ansari answered: "I wear a lot of Band of Outsiders because their stuff is cut for tiny men like myself. Also, Osh Kosh and Tommy Bahama." -Chloe Malle

Julian Schnabel arrived in his signature navy silk pajamas with girlfriend Rula Jebreal and daughter, Stella. Jebreal and Schnabel sat behind Bob Balaban who, before taking his seat, stood leaning over his seat to chat with the Miral director.

Supermodel and Lem Lem designer, Liya Kebede, tall and regal wandered down both aisles seeking the perfect seat, passing designer, Chris Benz, the sideburns of whose neon pink hair blended seamlessly into in his rosy cheeks.

Arizona Muse was forced to sit all the way up near the front of the large theater due to her late arrival and lack of saved seating. At the after party at the nautically renovated Royalton Hotel, the model du moment wandered around with an appetizer plate sprinkled with grilled vegetables and a copy of the Anna Wintour-covered WSJ Magazine tucked under her right arm. Somewhat incongruously, guests arriving at the Royalton were greeted by two pieces of posterboard propped up on display easels. On the left, the poster for the film featuring a time-pockmarked stone statue of President Lincoln, on the right the bob-centric Anna Wintour profile shot from the most recent issue of the WSJ Magazine (The Wall Street Journal and Piaget were the evening’s sponsors).

Derek Blasberg arrived with Dree Hemingway in a Stella McCartney citrus dress and after a brief interlude inside stepped back onto the sidewalk to share a cigarette break passing Mario and Maria Cuomo in the entryway posing for photographs with Mr. Redford and Billie Jean King.

-cmalle@observer.com

The mostly plastic casket was black with faux wood paneling, gaudy silver plastic trim and a yellow banner that read "Asbestos Kills!" Nearby, in a white van, Angel Rivera, organizer for Local 78, the Union of Asbestos, Lead and Hazardous Waste Laborers, was sitting shiva.

The purpose of the display, he said, was to send a message to David Koch-whose conglomerate Koch Industries is headquartered at 667 Madison Avenue-that "the environment and people's lives are more important than his bottom line." At issue was the hiring by Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia-Pacific of a contractor, Royal Environmental, that, according to a union-produced flyer, refuses to provide workers with decent wages, health care or basic asbestos protection.

The figure in the coffin had open sores and deep wrinkles-a ghoulish look offset somewhat by the addition of a hard hat, wrap-around sunglasses and a shimmery blue and purple scarf. Mr. Rivera said the deceased (one of four, positioned outside various Koch offices) has yet to be given a nickname.

The lavish production, first produced in Sydney, Australia, in 2006, and currently running on the West End in London, is a larger-than-the-screen adaptation of the 1994 film chronicling the odyssey of three drag queens across the outback. The winning feature of the madcap movie was the endless parade of costume confections. From feathers to flip-flops hinged together to form a sheath dress, the designs of then newcomers Lizzy Gardiner and Tim Chappel were revolutionary and won the team an Academy Award. Ms. Gardiner's choice of outfit for the ceremony was a dress made entirely of American Express Gold Cards.

"It was a bit of a nightmare," Ms. Gardiner told The Observer over the phone. "It imprinted all over my body. Tim brought a pair of pliers and had to keep putting it back together."

Mr. Bustos is in charge of overseeing day-to-day operations for the Broadway production. The more than 500 costumes were designed by the original duo. Ms. Gardiner said the musical version "is like the film on a massive dose of steroids."

Throughout the mazelike backstage, areas cordoned off with sheets of thick black cotton, called "bunkers," act as quick-change dressing rooms and house each chorus member's array of costumes in neat rows of hangers. In one of the bunkers, Mr. Bustos held up a soaring feathered headdress perched on a Styrofoam wig form. Most of the headdresses are made in London and then accented with feathers in New York. All of the feathers are sourced from midtown's Dersh Feather Company. "It's where everyone get their feathers," Mr. Bustos said. "Sesame Street, Vegas, the circuses--everyone. And they custom-dye them all the colors we need, like in the Les Girls headdresses, there's four different colors of pink!" The show uses 295 ostrich plume feathers, in addition to 100,000 Swarovski crystals.

With only six women in the 27-person cast, one of the primary challenges is dressing men as women. "We're forcing the body to look feminine," explained Mr. Bustos. "The Les Girls outfit is cut very high on the leg so it looks like a very long Barbie leg. And some of these guys have very long torsos, so we have to cut this lower." He made a v-shape across his chest.

All male cast members must wear a nude illusion under their costume. "It's basically a big pantyhose stocking that's opaque. It gets rid of all their hair and all the definition of their body, and when you light it, it makes them look more delicate," Mr. Bustos said. Each nude illusion is custom-made and dyed to the actor's skin tone.

The choice of fabric for the illusion is highly debated. Mr. Bustos prefers a porous mesh weave, but he noted that the selection depends on the hairiness of the cast members. "Like in this cast, we have pretty smooth guys just naturally, whereas in London they have a lot of guys with chest hair that they clip but don't shave, so you have to make them look smooth. Here we can almost get away without covering people's chests."

In one of the bunkers, a harried woman in jeans with a long blond braid pushed past. "I'm sorry, I have to do my baskets," she said. The wardrobe department staffs 11 dressers, two supervisors and six to eight day workers, all of whom begin setting up their laundry baskets about two hours before curtain call. The dressers prepare and ferry the costumes back and forth onto the wings of the stage, where most of the cast make the 261 costume changes. "So they take off one costume and put it in the basket, and then the stagehands bring that back down and come up with the next one," explained Mr. Bustos.

Even in the theater lobby, it is clear that costumes are crucial in this production. It has perhaps the only merchandise stand on Broadway to feature a silver, pointy-toe Manolo Blahnik Mary Jane in the display case. "That's the Priscilla Manolo!" gushed the salesman in a neon pink boa. "Aren't they fabulous?"

Outside the theater, after the performance, a coven of fastidiously coiffed middle-aged men clustered together. They discussed a dinner engagement later in the week. "Well, that place is very versatile, you can really get away with anything, but of course," the man trailed off, glancing down at his spine-bent Playbill, "you are what you wear."

cmalle@observer.com

It was a little after noon on March 10, and Mr. Guirgis was sitting on the mezzanine stairs of the Schoenfeld Theatre on West 45th Street, preparing for the rehearsal of his new play, The Motherfucker With the Hat, which opens on Broadway on April 11. Staring up at the high, ornate ceiling of the sumptuous venue, Mr. Guirgis, who is one of three artistic directors of the LAByrinth Theater Company, seemed a little surprised that he was there. The play had begun modestly, as most of his earlier work did, like The Little Flower of East Orange, with a small budget and plans to be staged at the Public Theater. He was happy that way. Until Scott Rudin, the Hollywood superman responsible for everything from The Social Network to The Book of Mormon, called. And called again.

"He had read the play and he kept calling my agent saying he wanted to do the play and my agent kept saying, 'No, we're going to do it at the Public.' And then at a certain point, my agent called me and was like, 'I think you need to listen to what Scott has to say.'" Mr. Guirgis, who has spiky silver hair, looked down at his calves, which seemed to melt straight into his feet without the traditional transition of an ankle. His burgundy sweatpants--cut off at the knee into shorts--matched the color of the theater's carpeting. When he finally spoke to Mr. Rudin, the producer was straightforward. "How about you, me, LAByrinth, the Public and Broadway?"

Mr. Guirgis shrugged now, as if to say, 'Why not?' "He's an amazing producer, so it was easy to want to try it," he told The Observer.

The power of Hollywood has infiltrated every aspect of American life, from video games to juice cleanses, and Broadway has not been spared. From the surge of film stars eager to take a turn onstage to high-profile producers ready to switch from celluloid to center stage, Broadway is Hollywood's latest conquered frontier--the White Man's Burden meets the Great White Way. Critics, ticket sales and audience interest confirmed the success of the Silver Screen imperialists--and for the low-budget, highly regarded LAByrinth Theater Company, Scott Rudin delivered all of the above. Not only did the producer secure the 1,000-seat Schoenfeld Theatre (which previously housed A Chorus Line, with Katie Holmes, and, more recently, A Behanding in Spokane, headlined by Christopher Walken) but he brought the script to Chris Rock, who had been looking for an ensemble part in a smart Broadway play.

"They were like: 'You can't play the lead. Not a lot of money. You have to read for it,'" Mr. Rock recently told The New York Times. He continued, "I'm like: 'I don't care. I hadn't seen anything good in so long.'"

Bingo. The LAB, once overshadowed in the theater world by glossier high-budget companies and known for The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and Our Lady of 121st Street (both Guirgis-written) now had a Hollywood box-office-busting star in their first Broadway show.

Mr. Guirgis, who had many different actors read for the part of the sponsor, including Boardwalk Empire's Michael Shannon and The Wire's Andre Royo, was immediately taken by Mr. Rock. "We went out and got something to eat, and in talking to him I quickly figured out that he's a guy who could have been in 53rd Street with us when we started the LAB. He's one of us."

But not exactly. "We'd be stupid not to acknowledge that we have a major, major star in the show," said Bobby Cannavale, a company member who plays the lead in the play, which chronicles the struggles of a recovering addict and his less-than-perfect sponsor. "Whatever gets people into their seats works for me."

As for the LAB's Rudin move itself, Mr. Cannavale drew an analogy to indie film. "It's like that; you get to fulfill the auteur's vision, but every filmmaker wants to get picked up by a good studio, whether they tell you they do or not."

Rehearsal was scheduled for 1 p.m. and around 12:20 p.m. Mr. Cannavale poked his head out from behind the staircase near stage right like a Whack-a-Mole to ask if the Tony-toting director, Anna Shapiro, had arrived yet. She hadn't, but several minutes later, Annabella Sciorra strode casually though the aisle of the orchestra in an olive green fedora and striped St. James mariner's shirt. The actress, best known for her Sopranos turn, plays Chris Rock's wife in the show.

The set sat quietly as a bustle took place in the orchestra below. A winding fire escape climbed like Jack's Beanstalk through the ceiling of the stage while center stage was occupied by an apartment interior, the walls painstakingly perfected to create the appearance of paint-flaking disrepair--the kind of poor urban scene that the LAB is known for. A bookshelf displayed colored glass religious candles next to a fern whose serrated leaves hung buoyantly over the edge of the shelf.

Mr. Guirgis, who joined the company in 1992, in its first year, as one of two non-Latino members (the other was Sam Rockwell), insisted that being on Broadway was still merely a matter of location, even with the Hollywood infusion. "I think that the theater world, it's just like a family: Sometimes you go stay with your cousins, sometimes you stay home for Thanksgiving," he said of the show's venue.

Speaking of family, the LAB's three current artistic directors--Mimi O'Donnell, Yul Vazquez and Mr. Guirgis, who took over for John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman in 2009--are all involved in the Broadway production. Ms. O'Donnell, who is the longtime partner of Philip Seymour Hoffman, with whom she has three children, is designing the costumes; Mr. Vasquez is in the cast.

Even with the LAB's history of gritty, realist portraits of inner-city underdogs, the company seems to understand the power of celebrity. They are famous for their annual fund-raiser Celebrity Charades--Julia Roberts participated in 2009--and boast a roster of star members, including Sam Rockwell, Eric Bogosian, Ugly Betty's Ana Ortiz and Dexter's David Zayas.

"Billy Crudup is always asking when he can be a member," said Mr. Vazquez, who looks like the rebellious younger brother Tyrone Power never had. At the LAB offices, he wore a Levi's denim vest embroidered with LTC NYC across the back, and periodically checked his BlackBerry.

"The people with the bigger names, they bring what that brings, and every company needs that," Philip Seymour Hoffman, the company's brightest name, told The Observer. "If you have a play with Sam Rockwell or myself or Eric Bogosian or any number of our members, you bring in more resources and attention. That's just the way it works."

At LAByrinth's midtown office, Ms. O'Donnell, the second artistic director, told The Observer she liked to think of the company as a home base that members return to after they're famous. "Since a lot of us have been together so long, you get into a room and there's an unspoken relationship. You don't have to go through the 'Oh, hi, how are you?' Even if people are new, they get sucked in right away." She snapped her fingers, the nails of which were manicured in glossy maroon varnish.

"There's a shorthand that happens," added Mr. Vazquez. "You're not coming here because you think you're going to get your musical done and it's going to run for 17 years and you're going to become a billionaire," he explained, "You're here because you're passionate about this and you want to challenge yourself."

Still, the lure of Broadway and the sheen of Hollywood are indisputable. "It took a while, but we finally got there. They said we couldn't fucking do it," Mr. Vazquez
smiled and leaned back balancing his chair on it's two hind legs, "and we did it with The Motherfucker With the Hat!"

Back at rehearsal, Mr. Guirgis was unfazed by his production's ascent to OZ. Watching as the tech crew set up the stage and the actors milled about, Mr. Guirgis shook his head. "I'll be just as happy if we kick ass here, and I'll be just as unhappy if we don't kick ass here as I would be at a 99-seat theater."

cmalle@observer.com

Outside the Frick Collection's Young Fellows Ball last Thursday, torrential rain added to the hothouse feeling of the evening's theme, Chinosierie. In the covered garden courtyard, tuxedo-clad waiters ferried flutes of Veuve Cliquot and tumblers of the evening's signature vodka cocktail, The Ginger Dragon. Fittingly, DJ Anton spun his tunes in the Music Room where guests could also partake in a dim sum bar, prompting an event organizer to offer gleefully, "DJ's and dumplings!" Patrons, soggy but exuberant, took the theme surprisingly literally with chopsticks securing their chignons and Geisha parasols as props rather than rain repellants. One elder man hid his graying coif with a Chinese Noble's hat replete with an attached dark braid Rapunzel-ing halfway down the back of his tuxedo.

The choices were clear: John Galliano, Muammar Gaddafi and Charlie Sheen. The Observer asked society staples, Olivia Chantecaille, Adelina Wong Ettelson and Alexandra Lebenthal to play the after-dinner game, 'Fuck, marry or kill'

"Ooo, that's a tough one," Ms. Chantecaille said thoughtfully, smoothing the silk jersey of her one-sleeved black mock turtle-neck Calvin Klein gown.

"Wait, marry, kill and sleep with?" Adelina Wong Ettelson clarified.

"I'm not playing," said Jay Diamond, Ms. Lebenthal's husband, definitively.

Click to see the rest of the week's parties.

Rembrandt's recently restored self-portrait watched the group arms-crossed from the gallery wall nearby, surveying the entire length of the garden court. "I think I might marry Galliano," said Ms. Wong Ettelson in a short, beaded, bib-front black and white Valentino.

"Yeah, and I think he would be a good husband. He wouldn't really get in my way. He would just be drunk, slurring words," Ms. Wong Ettelson tried to rationalize.

"He's an anti-Semite." Mr. Diamond interrupted with visible frustration.

"Yeah, for me that would be an issue." Agreed Ms. Lebenthal who wore a strapless Marchesa dress whipped into tufts of sea-foam green meringue.

"For me that would be a non-starter," said Mr. Diamond.

"But then Gaddafi and Charlie Sheen on the other hand?" Ms. Wong Ettelson asked, defending the difficulty of her choice.

"Yeah, there's really no good option there," said Ms. Chantecaille.

Ms. Lebenthal asked, "Yeah, aren't there any other options? Like Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper?" Picky, Picky.

In the neighboring gallery event organizer extraordinaire Bronson van Wyck and interior designer Margot Good felt even more strongly.

"Well, Gaddafi I wanna kill, that's a no-brainer," said Ms. Good.

"You should always marry the gay guy, so Galliano," added Mr. Van Wyck.

"And obviously Charlie Sheen is good in bed, he's..." Ms. Good paused to find the right word, "...well-versed."

Entering the Fragonard room muraled in panels of prancing puttis and parasoled reines of the Ancien Regime, Ms. Chantecaille exclaimed, "Oh my God it looks like a breath of spring and summer." Ms. Wong Ettelson joined her.

"We were just joking that this would be the perfect place to play Clue," said Ms. Chantecaille. "Wouldn't it be so much fun!?"

"I would be Miss Peacock," Ms. Chantecaille decided.

"I would be Colonel Mustard," volunteered Ms. Wong Ettelson.

"Really? I can see you as Miss Scarlett because you always have the red lips."

"That's true," she agreed thoughtfully.

"This is such a nice room because you almost forget it's like a monsoon outside," said Ms. Chantecaille. Ms. Wong-Ettelson huddled under the cover of her Shanghai Tang coat. "I really thought there would be people out there with umbrellas," she explained, "And there weren't!"

"I was leaving and my husband ran to get me an umbrella," Ms. Chantecaille said, "and he came back and was like, 'Is it inappropriate to go to the Frick event with a Whitney Museum umbrella?' I was like, 'I think it'll be okay. No one will notice.'"

Fashion designer Rachel Roy wasn't bothered by the weather. Asked how she protected herself from the storm, Ms. Roy shrugged, "I didn't. It's just water. Sorry, I don't care about those things."

The event co-sponsor posed for photographs in the marble lobby with the group of chairwomen, measuring almost a foot taller than rest of the group. Prematurely blooming Cherry blossoms nestled in two red lacquer vases, more Ikea than Ming Dynasty, flanking either side of the posing host committee.

She wore a pale sea-green wrap dress of her own design, nude Manolo Blahnik pointy toe heels and carried a colorful Judith Leiber clutch. Covering the head of the purse with her palm while clutching it, it was only when Ms. Roy held up the bejewelled minaudiere that one could recognize it as Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu God of Beginnings and Obstacles.

"I'm Indian, I wasn't not gonna get the Ganesh!" She joked.

But despite the most successful sartorial efforts, undoubtedly the best-dressed of all was Ingres' Comtesse d'Haussonville, who in her hyacinth blue taffeta, observed the revelry with resolution. Of course, she had seen it all before.

Edited by Daisy Prince

Most New Yorkers have never been to Rao's--the wait for a reservation can be longer than most Manhattan marriages--so the fact that a group of Las Vegas residents were invited to patronize the storied establishment without any reservation at all was cause for alarm, or at least an explanation. On Monday evening, March 1, Bon Appétit magazine corralled a singular pairing of homegrown New York media types and imported haute cuisine chefs from Las Vegas at Rao's to celebrate Vegas Uncork'd by Bon Appétit, the annual food and wine festival held in the Nevada hub the first weekend in May.

Jean Georges Vongerichten arrived early, smiley in a black pull-over, but could only stay from 6:30-6:45pm as Donald Trump was coming to dine at Mr. Vongerichten's Columbus Circle restaurant in the Trump International Tower--dueling namesakes leaves no time for Rao's.

Other celeb chefs included Francois Payard and Jet Tila, a top chef at Wynn Resorts who explained the difficulties of making Steve Wynn's personal sushi now that Mr. Wynn has gone vegan.

Rafish Adam Rapoport, newly minted editor of the host magazine, moved his eyes towards the ceiling pensively before answering what his last meal would be. "Well, I would make my last meal, because I'm a control freak. But the question is, would I go the mom route, like mom's meatloaf and mashed potatoes or something else?"

He wore dark-washed Levi's and a trimly tailored dark blazer.

"And then the bigger question is, who would it be with? Do I know it's the last meal?"

Unlike Alex Trebek, Mr. Rapoport was giving questions rather than answers.

Finally, he sat down at the red leather booth and taking a fork full of Rao's Cheesecake perfected his answer.

"I would get an aged rib-eye from the Florence Meat Market and I would cook it medium rare over really hot charcoal--no gas. Then I would have it sliced over arugula with lemon and olive oil and on the side I would make some roasted Yukon Gold potatoes, but peeled so they're crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. I would have two vodka sodas while I'm grilling and then a good Burgundy, maybe a Nuits-Saint-Georges."

He leaned back and sighed with satisfaction.

Dessert?

"Oh. I'm not really a big dessert guy. Maybe a biscotti?"

-cmalle@observer.com

Bergdorf Goodman's Linda Fargo, in frothy Vera Wang, lamented having to miss the two shows for the event. "I feel terribly guilty because I'm missing two shows tonight; Tahari and Proenza Schouler. I sent them all apologies ahead of time, and I tried to schedule getting into the showroom to make up for it." Ms. Fargo explained that she felt she deserved a break after a Fashion Week that averaged 12 destinations a day. Also, "they're our neighbors. Van Cleef is almost a part of Bergdorfs! And we don't get to treat our senses to this kind of thing very often. I know I will be very spoiled by this."

Wearing very sparkly diamond earrings, Piper Perabo looked much more like an Upper East Side socialite than the Coyote Ugly bartendress that made her famous. Currently shooting the sci-fi thriller, Looper, with Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ms. Perabo told The Observer she was excited for her scenes with Mr. Willis, which begin shooting next week.

Richard Meier coyly deferred answering whether he liked Frank Gehry's new residential tower in the Financial District, smiling shrewdly, "I haven't seen it." He also told The Observer that he designed a very architectural, gold necklace for his daughter for her recent nuptials.

Flashbulbs erupted and guests murmured in awe as Cate Blanchett ascended the steps of the former Carnegie Mansion in a jet-black taffeta Balenciaga column. Asked if she had chosen a dress for the next week's Academy Awards, where she will be a presenter, Ms. Blanchett said, "No, I haven't!" A glimmer in her eye. "I literally just flew in from Sydney."

Arriving at the event without a coat, Chelsea Clinton must have inured herself to the cold while visiting ski bum hubby Marc Mezvinsky in Jackson Hole. The couple continued to battle rumors that Mr. Mezvinsky's flight to Jackson Hole spelled the seven-month itch for the young couple, who posed arm in arm.

Former supermodel Carolyn Murphy arrived on the arm of designer du jour Jason Wu. The model, who recently relocated to New York City, told The Observer, "I'm working on a book for parents about bibliotherapy--storytelling."

Ms. Murphy assured The Observer that her 10-year-old is not allowed to have a cell phone and instead borrows her nanny's phone for texting.

Mr. Wu told The Observer he felt underdressed for the event. "I feel like I should be wearing some jewels!" Asked which jewel exhibited he would steal if given the chance, Mr. Wu beamed without skipping a beat, "I have the prettiest one," slipping his arm around Ms. Murphy's waist (which was about shoulder height for the diminutive designer).

Fiery fashionista Julie Macklowe lamented the 9 a.m. Yigal Azrouel show that morning. "Ugh, I was at the Buck Cherry last night, and then I had Yigal at the crack of dawn, and my kid, of course, standing on my bed at like 5 a.m.!"

Downtown jewelry designing darling Waris Ahluwalia also felt underdressed for the event, whose dress code designated "black tie and bejeweled."

"I didn't come bejeweled. I wore black tie, but no jewels. I thought about wearing some of my new pieces," said Mr. Ahluwalia, who had his debut Fashion Week presentation at the Museum of Art and Design the day before. "But I don't really wear my own jewelry."

When asked which piece from the exhibit she would swipe, society stalwart Muffie Potter Aston, didn't hesitate: "Marlene Dietrich's bracelet," lingering on the words like a heroine addict chasing a fix. "A big cuff from the '40s that's done as only those big '40s bracelets were done, with the big diamonds on top and the rubies--spectacular!" She also confided that she has thought about launching her own jewelry line now that her daughters had been accepted into kindergarten at Spence and assured The Observer, "I have been approached."

The black-tied-and-bejeweled guests were slowly ushered into Bronson van Wyck's silk dinner tent for the Jean-Georges Vongrichten five-course dinner.

Ms. Blanchett, the clear guest of honor, was seated at the central table next to Van Cleef & Arpel's chief, Nicholas Bos, and flanked by Jason Wu on her left. At a neighboring table, Mr. Meier's dinner partner was Ms. Aston. The nearly 1,000 guests listened attentively, spooning their Meyer lemon gelée and caviar while Smithsonian director Wayne Klough thanked the audience for joining him at the opening of the Van Cleef & Arpels exhibit. Smirks passed like a contagious pathogen around the room as Mr. Klough pronounced the French house's name "Arples," like Ms. Marple. Half of the guests filtered out before the Sparkling Key Lime pie arrived, streaming past the hanging mobiles of dyed feather butterflies suspended from the tent ceiling.

Band of Outsiders' designer Scott Sternberg has always shunned runway shows, opting instead for theatrically staged happening type displays of the next season's designs, so for his inaugural show the designer created a unique catwalk experience in the concrete floored event space on West 37th Street. There were, in effect, three runways bordered by three back to back rows of aluminum benches better suited to second string high school football players than Linda Fargo. This ensured that almost everyone got a front row seat, though demanded a more rigorous workout for models who were forced to snake through the three aisles.

Donald Glover arrived to find his seat, and cookie, next to Anna Wintour. However minutes later the Community star was asked to scoot down the bench when Tavi Gevinson, wearing a leopard print coat and a Cosby sweater that looked like a box of crayons exploded, was escorted to the seat directly next to Ms. Wintour. Ms. Gevinson put her hand up and smiled meekly at Ms. Wintour before being seated and then when smoothing her skirt once seated Ms. Wintour turned to the 15 year-old and said with non-commital obligation and little joy, "Hi, how are you? Nice to see you again."

Across the aisle Stefano Tonchi munched on his cookie pensively as Aziz Ansari, seated next to Mr. Tonchi, gesticulated while talking to his neighbor. Kanye West, Simon Doonan and Kid Cudi were also in attendance though not sighted by The Observer.

Several seats down from Ms. Wintour and Ms. Gevinson, Derek Blasberg and architect Rafael Cardenas, seated next to each other, were back to back with Kirsten Dunst, a longtime Band of Outsiders fan and the new face of the brand, and Opening Ceremony's dynamic duo Humberto Leon and Carol Lim. Mr. Blasberg swiveled his torso to chat with Ms. Lim and Mr. Leon confiding his appepite for a certain men's leopard print cardigan which is part of Chloe Sevigny's most recent collection for Opening Ceremony. The lights finally dimmed and Mr. Blasberg had to swivel back around. The show began, and quite a show it was.

-Chloe Malle

"Where are you going?" the son asked.

Wind rushed inside as the large wooden doors swung shut behind the younger Mr. Schnabel.

"To the boys' game. I'm going to try to watch a bit of it."

Next to his father's bearish being, the 24-year-old shrunk into the Carvaggio-like shadows of the dimly lit space. Both father and son wore black overcoats that hit above their knees.

"If you can, you should try to stay for the whole thing, you'll have fun," Vito advised his father of his twin brothers' high-school athletic event.

"Will you be here when I get back? Do you have plans this evening?" the elder Mr. Schnabel asked. He wore a bright yellow scarf and observed his son through egg-yolk-yellow tinted glasses.

"No, no plans," Vito replied. "I'll see you when you get back."

Such is the convenience of keeping family under one roof; Vito and his father occupy two of the 12-story palazzo's five residences.

The Palazzo Chupi, looming over West 11th Street, is Julian Schnabel's largest standing work of art. Built atop an early-20th-century factory building, it was a sore-thumb example of the real estate bubble bursting when one duplex unit was bought and sold by Richard Gere for a million-dollar loss, and prices for the penthouse triplex plummeted in 2009, from $32 million to $10.5 million.

"Basically, I made a deal with my dad so I could take this over and lease it from him for some years," Mr. Schnabel said of his duplex apartment while unpeeling his coat and then the oatmeal-colored Hermes scarf looped around his neck. Mr. Schnabel's residence occupies one-half of the third-floor duplex, with his father's studio next door occupying the rest of the floor.

"This was supposed to be two floors," he went on, as he strode from the low-ceilinged kitchen and dining area of his apartment into the double-height living room. "And we took the ceiling out of it and doubled the height so I have this little salon."

Mr. Schnabel is, officially, an art dealer. But he is also a curator, a gallerist, an exhibition instigator and, these days, the Jay Gatsby of the young art-world set, having hosted the most-sought-after party at this year's Art Basel Miami and appearing around town at the chicest gatherings. (He most recently caused a stir when he arrived at the nightclub Avenue with actress Liv Tyler.)

Not that he's new to causing a stir: At 21, he was rumored to be dating the then 44-year-old Elle MacPherson. Asked about his son's relationship with the Australian supermodel, known as "the body," the elder Mr. Schnabel nonchalantly told a reporter, "They're hanging out. It's not like he's smuggling heroin across the border!"

The walls of the lofty living room are covered in wood-siding--"salvaged from Brooklyn," Mr. Schnabel pointed out. Weathered tiles in a dim cobalt and black cover the floor, and an L-shaped sectional centers the room, framing a coffee table covered in figurines of various shapes and sizes.

"Oh, those are Bruce High Quality figurines," said Mr. Schnabel. "They painted the Bruce face on them for a show that we did for Basel last year."

The young art dealer paced between two Prussian Blue velvet Louis XV wingback chairs. "I took all the paintings down in my hotel [in Miami] and put up Terence's work and Dan's and the Bruces'."

Mr. Schnabel, who is not tall and has the ruddy complexion of a child who has spent too much of the summer playing outdoors, was referring to works by his friends and clients, Terence Koh, Dan Colen and the members of the Bruce High Quality Foundation.

He was dressed in dark-washed jeans and a white button-down shirt with mint-green stripes, a small navy monogram discreetly tucked above his spleen. His wavy hair, a dark gold color, was raked straight back in the style of an idle European.

"Naturally, from putting together shows, you end up working with artists, and a lot of the artists I work with I've become very close friends with."

His gaze settled on the divan of the sectional sofa, which was draped in magenta linen and decorated with a cream and lime crewel work throw pillow. "It's all sort of grown, or happened, very organically," he said.

The Bruce High Quality Foundation, whom Vito has known since a chance run in at J.F.K. airport in 2003 (Vito asked the group to buy a bottle of Champagne for him, as he was under 21 at the time), noted via a group email (the only way they conduct interviews), "Vito is really a friend first and a dealer second, which means that we have real conversations about what it means to work in the art world today."

This year, Mr. Schnabel organized the foundation's three-year-old Brucennial, the salon des refusés that featured more than 300 artists and drew 30,000 visitors to a Soho space borrowed from Mr. Schnabel's friend, Aby Rosen. "This time around, he could buy the Champagne," said the foundation.

Mounted on a wall, high and centered like a religious icon, was a thin white light strip coiled into the shape of a rooster. "Oh and that's Terence's Big White Cock. It lights up, but it isn't lit right now. I can light it for you if you want."

Mr. Schnabel and artist Terence Koh, who are best friends, have known each other for almost half a decade. Their first collaboration was a show of Mr. Koh's white paintings at Richard Avedon's former studio in 2008; their most recent collaboration was a sculpture garden of sorts installed this past summer in the middle of a cornfield in Bridgehampton, N.Y.

"I was supposed to do it on a friend of mine's land, but that fell through because instead of planting corn, they were planting cauliflower and eggplant." Mr. Schnabel settled into one of the velvet wingback chairs, his arm draped over the gilded arm.

"I went to those farmers and said, 'Listen, there's a big problem here, I don't want to ruin your crops but I need to have this exhibition for an artist I work with and I need some corn.'" He laughed shortly when recounting the interaction. (His diplomacy paid off, staging the 20-acre exhibition in a neighboring cornfield.)

In his recent exhibition at the W Hotel in Miami, during Art Basel, he reinstalled Mr. Koh's Bridgehampton cornfield sculptures on the Florida beach. However, it was the party he hosted at the hotel's The Wall lounge that received the most attention, with guests including Susan Sarandon, Alber Elbaz, Sean Penn and Naomi Campbell as well as the art world's entire royal court.

"THERE'S NO DOWNSIDE to being a Schnabel," the young Mr. Schnabel previously told The Observer of his family. Of his relationship with his father, he has said, "We're best friends; we travel the world looking at art and buying art. I help him and he helps me." His father agreed: "I think we're very close. I don't just walk into his house, unless we have a plan to have a steam bath." The father and son often utilize the building's 44-foot swimming pool and steam room.

Covering most of the wall behind Mr. Schnabel is a large painting by his father, at least 8 feet wide, indecipherable words in script and a bird wing over a multi-hued color field. "He painted that around 1990, when my mom and dad were together. It was a painting that I grew up with."

Mr. Schnabel's mother, Jacqueline, lives nearby, also in the West Village; his father lives upstairs on the seventh floor with Rula Jebreal, the 37-year old Palestinian author of Miral, which Mr. Schnabel recently turned into a film. Asked bluntly whether he likes Ms. Jebreal, the young Mr. Schnabel straightened his posture in the chair. "Yes, I do. What kind of question is that? Terrible question. Next."

He later returned to the subject unsolicited: "Yes, I do like Rula very much."

Growing up, Mr. Schnabel attended Saint Ann's, the famous bastion of creativity, though he insisted he never had any inclination toward becoming an artist. He curated his first exhibition (filling a 20,000-square-foot space) as a junior in high school, featuring works by artists he grew up around (including Vahakn Arslanian, Luigi Ontani and Herbie Fletcher) as well as pieces by his sister, Lola.

"There are a lot of different dimensions to it, whether it's being around all this different art, or all these younger artists who wanted to have shows, or being at home always surrounded by art unfortunately, no, not unfortunately, but just ..." he trailed off.

"I didn't know what he was going to do," the elder Mr. Schnabel told The Observer over the phone from St. Moritz on Monday afternoon. "I thought he hated art because it was something that took me away from him."

After Saint Ann's, Vito attended the New School, but dropped out. "I went for a full year," he sighed. "I always wanted to be out there [working] from a young age. And it was something that was going to happen so ..." His voice trailed off.

Of his career choice he added jokingly, "I wasn't going to be a professional athlete because I didn't grow until I was about 20 years old, so it seemed like the next best thing." (Though Julian Schnabel noted with paternal pride, "It just so happens Vito is an amazing athlete. He plays basketball with Steve Nash. He organized this baseball game, and every time he got up to bat he hit a home run! He didn't get it from me; I've always been a surfer.")

Vito Schnabel now runs an office of six people on Greenwich Street in north Tribeca. His next project is a March exhibition of works by the poet and artist Rene Ricard, a coup considering the reclusive Chelsea Hotel resident hasn't shown his work in years. (Mr. Schnabel's first art purchase was a drawing of a capsized ship by Mr. Ricard, which the nascent dealer bought for $300 at the age of 10.)

Asked if it's difficult being the boss at 24, Mr. Schnabel replied thoughtfully, "It doesn't really work like that. There's a quiet understanding. But I did have more trouble with that before."

When not working or working the town, Mr. Schnabel likes to watch basketball (he is an ardent Knicks fan) and movies--he recently saw, and loved, the Joaquin Phoenix almost-documentary I'm Still Here. Mr. Schnabel also likes to read; he recently finished Annie Cohen-Solal's biography of legendary art dealer Leo Castelli, Leo and His Circle: The Life of Leo Castelli. Of the biography, Mr. Schnabel noted, "I thought it was super-interesting how late it all started for him."

cmalle@observer.com